Well, Bruce delivered the foreword to Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling this morning, so I put together the final ms. of the book and emailed it off to Subterranean Press. We’re only waiting on the introduction (the delay being my fault, not the introducer’s). I think galleys should follow shortly, with the book coming out sometime in mid-2007. I’ve gotta say, in these busy days, that I was pretty happy to send that one off to the publisher. Terry Dowling and I also did the final corrections on The Jack Vance Treasury, so that one is headed off to the printer for a January 2007 publication (I think). Busy times!
What now? Well, I think, if I can keep focussed, getting Best Short Novels: 2007 up and running, seeing if mystery project X will fly (we’ll know over the next month), and working on some other stuff that’s bubbling away. I’m also trying to find time to watch the cricket, spend time with the family (it’s the kids dance show in a week or two), and all sorts of other craziness. Mad times too.
At the close of play on Saturday the UK’s Guardian referred to the Brisbane Cricket Ground at Woolloongabba as the ‘Gabbattoir’. A lacklustre England were on the ropes and being played with by a dominant Australia. What a difference a day makes. Spirited play by the English batsmen, especially Collingwood and Pietersen, has changed everything. While talk of an outside chance of them saving the game seems very unlikely, the fact that it exists at all is significant. No matter how the game ends now, England will have positives to take away. Yes, they fell apart. But they fought back. They showed that they (at least some of them) could handle the Australian bowlers (at least some of them). They showed that they weren’t a bunch of surrender monkeys. So now, rather than limping to Adelaide for Friday’s second test, they go there with some hope. And why? Well, from where I sit, it comes down to a bad decision by Ricky ‘Punter’ Ponting, Australia’s captain. By not enforcing the follow-on on Saturday, he lengthened the game (increasing the ACB’s revenues), made the competition look more viable (increasing the ACB’s revenues), and let England off the hook. Even if Australia win this game, it was a terrible decision.
Tomorrow morning, at about 7.30am Perth local time, it starts. The bloodbath in Brisbane is the opening round of the 2006/2007 Ashes, and it’s going to be something. There’s a lot of talk about how the series will progress, who will win how many Tests and so on. I might be wrong, but I think it’s going to be short and brutal for the POMS. I’m not sure five zip is possible, but I’d expect 4-nil as a possible outcome. I do wonder if any of the games will go to four days. I think by 5pm on Thursday we’ll have a pretty good idea of how the summer might unfold.
There’s a meme going around. Respond to the SF Book Club’s Top 50. I might. I might not. The only one I’ve not read is the Willmar Shiras, and yet my life feel’s complete. Best response to the meme, though, is from the irrespressible David Moles. Read his response instead.
NB: Edited to remove by stupid error, as wisely advised by Mike Walsh. The book I’ve not read is Wilmar Shiras’s novel Children of the Atom.
Gavin and Kelly over at Small Beer have posted all sorts of pre-ordery goodness. You can pre-order Elizabeth Hand’s new novel Generation Loss, John Crowley’s next Aegypt novel Endless Things, a Delia Sherman/Theodora Goss edited anthology of interstitial writing, and an new Laurie Marks novel. If there isn’t something there you need right away, you’re not trying hard enough!
